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Adobe's online collaboration suite, Acrobat.com, gains three great features this month, one that even desktop word processors lack.

We covered the launch of Acrobat.com in August, explaining that Adobe had acquired the online word processor Buzzword and used it as the cornerstone of its fledgling online collaboration suite. The suite also includes ConnectNow (an online meeting space for up to three people that includes videoconferencing), a tool for creating PDFs, easy document sharing, and 5GB of free online document storage.

The three new features all have to do with Buzzword: document comparisons, full justification, and EPUB exporting.

Document Comparisons

Collaboration was already a key feature of Buzzword, so it's no surprise that it's gaining the ability to compare versions of a document. The program already saved multiple versions of a document automatically, letting you view older versions with ease. It also allowed you to see who on your team created each version.

The new comparison feature lets you select any two versions of a document and see what was altered. You can view changes in two different modes. The first mode preserves the pagination of the latest version. In this mode, you see a red line where blocks of text were cut and you can mouse over that line to view the deleted text in a pop-up window. Newly added text is shown with a dotted line underneath it. The second mode shows all changed material, so deleted text is visible, although with a line through it. The first mode gives you a better feel for how the document is shaping up, while the second mode lets you see all the material at a glance.

Full Justification

The last two changes "seem small but take a whole lot of code," says Rick Treitman, Buzzword's creator and now an entrepreneur in residence at Adobe. Right-edge justification was a feature much in demand from Buzzword's users, especially those in England and Germany. An edge is justified when it forms a straight vertical line. While Americans are more likely to prefer their documents with a ragged right edge and consistent spacing throughout each line, Europeans apparently prefer the tidy look of flush left and right edges -- even if that means varied spaces between words.

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